John Bowers

User embodiment in collaborative virtual environments

This paper explores the issue of user embodiment within collaborative virtual environments. By user embodiment we mean the provision of users with appropriate body images so as to represent them to others and also to themselves. By collaborative virtual environments we mean multi-user virtual reality systems which explicitly support co-operative work (although we argue that the results of our exploration may also be applied to other kinds of collaborative system). The main part of the paper identifies a list of embodiment design issues including: presence, location, identity, activity, availability, history of activity, viewpoint, actionpoint, gesture, facial expression, voluntary versus involuntary expression, degree of presence, reflecting capabilities, physical properties, active bodies, time and change, manipulating your view of others, representation across multiple media, autonomous and distributed body parts, truthfulness and efficiency. Following this, we show how these issues are reflected in our own DIVE and MASSIVE prototype systems and also show how they can be used to analyse several other existing collaborative systems.

Workflow from within and without: technology and cooperative work on the print industry shopfloor

This paper reports fieldwork from an organization in the print industry, examining a workflow system introduced to the shopfloor. We detail the indigenous methods by which members order their work, contrast this with the order provided by the system, and describe how members have attempted to accommodate the two. Although it disrupted shopfloor work, the systems use was a contractural requirement on the organization to make its services accountable. This suggests workflow systems can often be seen as technologies for organizational ordering and accountability. We conclude that CSCW requirements should acknowledge such exigencies and the organizational status of workflow technologies.

Talk and embodiment in collaborative virtual environments

A B S T R A C T This paper presents some qualitative, interpretative analyses of social interaction in an internationally distributed, realtime, multi-party meeting held within a collaborative virtual environment (CVE). The analyses reveal some systematic problems with turn taking and participation in such environments. We also examine how the simple polygonal shapes by means of which users were represented and embodied in the environment are deployed in social interaction. Strikingly, some familiar coordinations of body movement are observed even though such embodiments are very minimal shapes. The paper concludes with some suggestions for technical development, derived from the empirical analyses, which might enhance interactivity in virtual worlds for collaboration and cooperative work.

The work to make a network work: studying CSCW in action

This paper reports on a field study of the procurement, implementation and use of a local area network devoted to running CSCW-related applications in an organization within the U.K.s central government. In this particular case, the network ran into a number of difficulties, was resisted by its potential users for a variety of reasons, was faced with being withdrawn from service on a number of occasions and (at the time of writing) remains only partly used. The study points to the kinds of problems that a project to introduce computer support for cooperative work to an actual organization is likely to face and a series of concepts are offered to help manage the complexity of these problems. In so doing, this paper adds to and extends previous studies of CSCW tools in action but also argues that experience from the field should be used to re-organise the research agenda of CSCW.

Practically accomplishing immersion: cooperation in and for virtual environments

Accomplishing Immersion: in and for Virtual Environments Jon O’Brien James Pycock Department of Sociology Department of Psychology Lancaster University, U.K. Manchester University, U.K. +44-1524-594186 +44-161-275-2682 soajeo @centl .lancs.ac.uk pycockj @?hera.psy.man. ac.uk Collaborative virtual environments (CVES) employ virtual reality technology to support cooperative work. Building on ethnographic and interaction analyses of CVES in use, we argue that many and varied activities are required to set up, maintain and troubleshoot CVES. These activities cross-over between virtual worlds and the real, physical environments which meeting participants inhabit. Thus, art understanding of CVES must attend to the relations between cooperation within a CVE and for it to be established as an arena for intelligible social action. These findings suggest a social scientifically informed respecification of what it is to be ‘immersed in a CVE.

Embodiments, avatars, clones and agents for multi-user, multi-sensory virtual worlds

Abstract.This paper explores the issue of user embodiment within collaborative virtual environments. By user embodiment we mean the provision of users with appropriate body images so as to represent them to others and also to themselves. By collaborative virtual environments we mean multi-user virtual reality systems which explicitly support cooperative work (although we argue that the results of our exploration may also be applied to other kinds of collaborative system). The main part of the paper identifies a list of embodiment design issues grouped by the general themes of personal representation, conveying activity, embodiment in heterogeneous systems, embodiment of agents, and ethical issues. These issues are illustrated with examples from our own DIVE and MASSIVE collaborative virtual environments. The paper also uses this set of issues as an analytical framework for comparing a number of other communication technologies.n

The Interactional Affordances of Technology: An Ethnography of Human-Computer Interaction in an Ambulance Control Centre

This paper reports an ethnography of ambulance dispatch work in a large UK metropolitan region. The interplay between control centre ecology, usage of a computerised dispatch system, and cooperative work of control personnel is analysed. The methods by which a working division of labour is sustained to effectively manage dispatch in the face of high workload and manifold contingency are explicated, and contrasted with methods employed by workers in other control room settings known from the literature. The implications of the study for system improvement and for several emphases in HCI research (including discussions of affordances) are explored.

Networked virtual reality and cooperative work

We explore the issue of supporting cooperative work using networked virtual reality. This exploration covers three major themes: supporting communication and awareness, structuring space, and embodying users. Correspondingly, three sets of concepts are introduced. The first is a spatial model of interaction, which defines the mechanisms of aura, awareness, focus, nimbus, and adapters to allow the inhabitants of virtual environments to flexibly manage their communication across a number of media. The second is a set of techniques for constructing Populated Information Terrains (PITS), abstract data spaces that support the cooperative browsing of information. The third is a set of design issues for virtual bodies. Each set of concepts is illustrated with a discussion of prototype applications implemented within our own DIVE and MASSIVE networked virtual reality systems.

Getting others to get it right: an ethnography of design work in the fashion industry

This paper reports an ethnographic study of design work in the fashion industry. Contrary tomany images of fashion design, in this setting, it is essentially tied to organizational and inter-organizational coordination, and the demands of manufacture and supply chain management. Relatively little design work involves artistic drawing, much requires retrieval from databases, data analysis, information gathering and matters which members themselves call ‘technological’. Experiences collaborating with developers and the relevance of advanced 3D design tools and Virtual Reality for CSC W are considered on the basis of these findings and in the light of debates over ethnography in system development.

Making it work: A field study of a “CSCW Network”

This article presents a field study of the procurement, implementation, and use of a local area network devoted to running computer‐supported cooperative work (CSCW) related applications in a U.K. central government organization. In this particular case, the network ran into a number of difficulties, was resisted by its potential users for a variety of reasons, was faced with being withdrawn from service on a number of occasions, and remains only partly used. The study points to the kinds of problems that a project to introduce computer support for cooperative work to an actual organization is likely to face, and a series of concepts is offered to help manage the complexity of these problems. In so doing, this article adds to and extends previous studies of CSCW tools in action but also argues that experience form the field should be used to reorganize the research agenda of CSCW.